US President Donald Trump Wednesday said he was "amazingly alone" within his administration on the issue that America be reimbursed for the "massive cost" of protecting other immensely wealthy countries.
Trump conceded that people would start to understand his perspective if he said it "three or four times".
"We're protecting immensely wealthy countries and they're not paying us for the protections. I say why are we protecting you when you're very wealthy and you wouldn't be here for two weeks if it wasn't for us? Why aren't we being reimbursed for this massive cost? Fully reimbursed for this massive cost that we're taking care of," Trump told 'The Daily Caller', a Washington-based news and opinion website.
"Amazingly alone", he said when asked whether he felt alone in this view.
"Amazingly, a lot of generals don't understand it. A lot of people don't understand it," he said, adding "once you say it three or four times people say 'wow he's right about that'. I mean I could go country after country, but I won't embarrass them," he said.
"I mean, and I say to myself, 'okay you have a country, it's immensely wealthy, we're guarding it. We're spending tremendous amounts, billions of dollars to guard and they're not reimbursing us," he said.
More From This Section
"Why? I'll be honest, I've asked countries, I've said, you've got to reimburse us. First, they don't understand the question. Within 5 minutes, they agree," he said.
Trump referred to the increased spending by countries within the NATO alliance as an example of his resonating message and defended his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We had a great meeting and then I guess [the media] wanted me to get into a boxing match with him on the podium. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen," Trump said in the interview.